“ The Wonderful World of Albert Kahn” is just that, a wonderful book full of autochromes sumptuously reproduced from Kahn’s huge collection. In 1909 the millionaire French banker & philanthropist Albert Kahn embarked on an ambitious project to create a colour photographic record of, & for, the peoples of the world. He believed that he could use the (then) new autochrome colour photography process to promote cross-cultural peace & understanding. Now, a century after he launched his Archives of the Planet project, this book & its accompanying BBC television series are bringing Kahn’s dazzling pictures to a mass audience for the first time & putting colour into what we tend to think of as an entirely monochrome age. Kahn used his vast fortune to send a group of intrepid photographers all over the world, when age-old cultures were on the brink of being changed forever by war & the merciless march of twentieth century globalisation. They documented the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian & Ottoman empires; the last traditional Celtic villages in Ireland; even the soldiers during the First World War as they cooked & laundered in their trenches. They also took the earliest-known colour photographs in countries as far apart as Vietnam & Brazil, Mongolia & Norway, Benin & the United States. Dying in 1940, his vast finances reduced to rubble by the Wall Street Crash, Kahn died. Yet his legacy is now considered to be the most important collection of early colour photographs in the world
- & this magnificent book is testament to that.
...

Did you know that ` Almost` is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order? Or that ` Stewardesses` is the longest word you can type solely with your left hand? Or that fireflies aren`t flies, they`re beetles? From information about words & their uses, useful lists of things you never knew had names, palindromes, famous lines from literature & film, to bizarre test answers & much, much more, The Wonderful World of Words is bursting with truly oddball facts about words & language
- & will have you hooked from the very first page. An essential guide for anyone interested in a humorous look at the world of language.
...

Created by Mac Donald Gill in 1914, this pictorial poster map of London is packed with whimsical illustrations capturing the city's character during the carefree, pre-First World War era
- an era that all too soon was to be lost forever. It was created to amuse tube travellers waiting for services that, in those early days of underground travel, were often far from wonderful.
...

In this extraordinary debut novel with its deft nod to Dickensian heroes & rogues, Mira Bartok tells the story of Arthur, a shy, fox-like foundling with only one ear & a desperate desire to belong, as he seeks his destiny. Welcome to the Home for Wayward & Misbegotten Creatures, an institution run by evil Miss Carbunkle, a cunning villainess who believes her terrified young charges exist only to serve & suffer. Part animal & part human, the groundlings toil in classroom & factory, forbidden to enjoy anything regular children have, most particularly singing & music. For the Wonderling, an innocent-hearted, one-eared, fox-like eleven-year-old with only a number rather than a proper name
- a 13 etched on a medallion around his neck
- it is the only home he has ever known. But unexpected courage leads him to acquire the loyalty of a young bird groundling named Trinket, who gives the Home`s loneliest inhabitant two incredible gifts: a real name
- Arthur, like the good king in the old stories
- & a best friend. Using Trinket`s ingenious invention, the pair escape over the wall & embark on an adventure that will take them out into the wider world & ultimately down the path of sweet Arthur`s true destiny.



...

The first pop-up book on Florence. Dario Cestaro`s spectacular drawings & paper architecture reveal Florence & its treasures in a pop-up book telling the city`s history with straightforward texts & interesting facts. This fascinating journey in coloured pages shaped into Florence`s most celebrated landmarks will help even younger children to recognize the main buildings: the cathedral with its famous ogival dome; the Palazzo Vecchio with its great tower & crenellated walls; the Palazzo Pitti, once the Medicis` majestic ducal residence; the Ponte Vecchio, the iconic bridge over the Arno with its historic craft shops; the Church of Santa Croce, which contains tombs & monuments to many illustrious persons (Dante, Michelangelo, Galileo). ...

The Wood Fire Handbook shows you that the soothing effect of dancing flames & glowing embers is a simple pleasure to have in our lives. Understanding everything that underpins the perfect wood fire makes it even more enjoyable. Vincent Thurkettle`s handbook is the essential companion & manual. Contents include. Understand which trees make the best firewood Learn how to split, season, & store wood Lay the perfect tree Make an ingenious campfire Choose wood for its scent.. .and much much more! ...

From one of our greatest science writers, this biography of a beech-&-bluebell wood through diverse moods & changing seasons combines stunning natural history with the ancient history of the countryside to tell the full story of the British landscape. ` The woods are the great beauty of this country...A fine forest-like beech wood far more beautiful than anything else which we have seen in its vicinity` is how John Stuart Mill described a small patch of beech-and bluebell woodl&, buried deeply in the Chiltern Hills & now owned by Richard Fortey. Drawing upon a lifetime of scientific expertise & abiding love of nature, Fortey uses his small wood to tell a wider story of the ever-changing British landscape, human influence on the countryside over many centuries & the vital interactions between flora, fauna & fungi. The trees provide a majestic stage for woodland animals & plants to reveal their own stories. Fortey presents his wood as an interwoven collection of different habitats rich in species. His attention ranges from the beech & cherry trees that dominate the wood to the flints underfoot; the red kites & woodpeckers that soar overhead; the lichens, mosses & liverworts decorating the branches as well as the myriad species of spiders, moths, beetles & crane-flies. The 300 species of fungi identified in the wood capture his attention as much as familiar deer, shrews & dormice. Fortey is a naturalist who believes that all organisms are as interesting as human beings
- & certainly more important than the observer. So this book is a close examination of nature & human history. He proves that poetic writing is compatible with scientific precision. The book is filled with details of living animals & plants, charting the passage of the seasons, visits by fellow enthusiasts; the play of light between branches; the influence of geology; & how woodland influences history, architecture & industry. On every page he shows how an intimate study of one small wood can reveal so much about the natural world & demonstrates his relish for the incomparable pleasures of discovery.
...

From one of our greatest science writers, this biography of a beech-&-bluebell wood through diverse moods & changing seasons combines stunning natural history with the ancient history of the countryside to tell the full story of the British landscape.` The woods are the great beauty of this country... A fine forest-like beech wood far more beautiful than anything else which we have seen in its vicinity` is how John Stuart Mill described a small patch of beech-and bluebell woodl&, buried deeply in the Chiltern Hills & now owned by Richard Fortey. Drawing upon a lifetime of scientific expertise & abiding love of nature, Fortey uses his small wood to tell a wider story of the ever-changing British landscape, human influence on the countryside over many centuries & the vital interactions between flora, fauna & fungi. The trees provide a majestic stage for woodland animals & plants to reveal their own stories. Fortey presents his wood as an interwoven collection of different habitats rich in species. His attention ranges from the beech & cherry trees that dominate the wood to the flints underfoot; the red kites & woodpeckers that soar overhead; the lichens, mosses & liverworts decorating the branches as well as the myriad species of spiders, moths, beetles & crane-flies. The 300 species of fungi identified in the wood capture his attention as much as familiar deer, shrews & dormice. Fortey is a naturalist who believes that all organisms are as interesting as human beings
- & certainly more important than the observer. So this book is a close examination of nature & human history. He proves that poetic writing is compatible with scientific precision. The book is filled with details of living animals & plants, charting the passage of the seasons, visits by fellow enthusiasts; the play of light between branches; the influence of geology; & how woodland influences history, architecture & industry. On every page he shows how an intimate study of one small wood can reveal so much about the natural world & demonstrates his relish for the incomparable pleasures of discovery.
...

From `one of the best nature-writers of his generation` (Country Life) & 2017 winner of the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing, this BBC Radio 4 ` Book of the Week` is the story of a wood
- both its natural daily life & its historical times. Cockshutt is a particular wood
- three & half acres of mixed woodland in south west Herefordshire
- but it stands as exemplar for all the small woods of Engl&. For four years John Lewis-Stempel managed the wood. He coppiced the trees & raised cows & pigs who roamed free there. This is the diary of the last year, by which time he had come to know it from the bottom of its beech roots to the tip of its oaks, & to know all the animals that lived there
- the fox, the pheasants, the wood mice, the tawny owl
- & where the best bluebells grew. For many fauna & flora, woods like Cockshutt are the last refuge. It proves a sanctuary for John too. To read The Wood is to be amongst its trees as the seasons change, following an easy path until, suddenly the view is broken by a screen of leaves, or your foot catches on a root, or a bird startles overhead. Lyrical, informative, steeped in poetry & folklore, it is both very real & very magical.




...

The Wooden Horse is legendary, but what exactly was it? Why did the Greek warriors construct such a thing in the first place? & what was it that made the Trojans believe the Greeks had sailed away & the ten-year Trojan War was over? All these questions are answered in this fifth booklet of the Put it in Your Pocket Series. ...